Show Me a Hero

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “If she wrote the note. Do you even have proof of that? And who the hell is Jaxie?”

  She glanced at the clock again. Gowler would take lateness even worse than he would her personal use of a department vehicle. God only knew what he would assign her to next. Janitorial, maybe. It was about the one thing he hadn’t done. Yet. “Maybe I should start at the beginning.”

  He gave her a long look that seemed to say “you think?” “Maybe you should.”

  She suddenly felt too warm and unzipped her jacket. “An infant was left on the doorstep of a home owned by two brothers in Braden last month. The only identifying item left with the baby was the note. Unsigned, as I said. On common, white paper. No clear fingerprints. But the reference to Jaxie presumably meant Jaxon Swift, who is one of the occupants of the home. Mr. Swift owns a business in Braden and he had an employee for a short while named—” she inclined her head slightly “—Daisy Miranda, who was the only one who ever used that nickname for him. But she left Mr. Swift’s employment more than a year ago and he hasn’t heard from her since.”

  “So? The kid is his. Why else leave her for him? What’s the problem?” His eyes looked cynical. “Jaxie doesn’t want to take responsibility?”

  “That was our assumption, too, at first. That he was the father, I mean. But DNA tests have already disproved his paternity. He’s not Layla’s father. The business Mr. Swift owns is a bar. Magic Jax. Karen was a cocktail waitress. Their uniforms are, um—”

  “Skimpy?”

  She hesitated. She’d been known to work as a cocktail waitress at Magic Jax a time or two for extra money. She was taking a few shifts right now to help get her car out of auto-shop jail. “Let’s just say the outfits are closely fitted. Given the timing, it’s unlikely that your sister was even pregnant when she quit working there. There are no records locally about Layla’s birth, but we estimate she’s now about three months old.”

  “So where is the baby?”

  Ali kept herself from shifting. “The judge in charge of her case has placed her temporarily with a local family while we investigate.”

  His lips twisted. “He’s put her in foster care, you mean.”

  The term was accurate, but implied a formality and distance that wasn’t the case at all, since it was Ali’s own sister Maddie and her new husband, Lincoln Swift, who were providing the care. “Yes. A very good foster family. Can you give me any information about Karen’s friends? If she was involved with a particular man?”

  “No. I didn’t even know she’d been here in Wyoming.”

  Ali waited a moment for him to explain further, but he didn’t. And even though she tried to give him her best demanding stare, his gaze didn’t shy away.

  She was afraid that she was the one who came away feeling unsteady. She wasn’t used to feeling unnerved by a man. Even an unreasonably handsome one.

  Determined to get back on track, she reached into the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out one of her business cards. They were generic cards for the police department, but she kept a small supply on which she’d added her badge number, email and phone number. “If there’s anything that comes to you, anything at all, please consider calling me.”

  He didn’t take the card. “So you can arrest her for abandoning her child?”

  She thought about the sweet baby that she herself had rocked and played with and fallen for just like everyone else who’d come into Layla’s orbit. It didn’t really matter what had drawn this man and his nomadic sister to the same place at entirely different times.

  What mattered was Layla.

  She placed the card on the center of the table as she stood. “So I can find a child’s mother,” she amended quietly.

  He didn’t respond. Didn’t reach for the card.

  She squelched a sigh. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Cooper.” She turned to leave the kitchen.

  “I haven’t talked to Karen in nearly three years,” he said abruptly.

  She stopped and looked at him. She couldn’t imagine not speaking with any one of her siblings for three days, much less three years. “That’s a long time.”

  “You don’t know Karen.” He stood from the table and escorted her from the barren kitchen back through the nonlivable living room. “She’s flighty. Irresponsible. Manipulative. But she wouldn’t have done this.” He opened the front door and a rush of bitterly cold wind swept inside. “She wouldn’t have dumped off her baby.”

  “Not even if she was desperate?”

  His lips tightened. “If she was that desperate, she would have let me know.”

  “Well...” Ali zipped up her jacket. Fortunately, her departmental SUV had good heating. She stuck out her hand, hoping to show him that she wasn’t his adversary. “If you think of anything at all that might help us find her, please consider calling me.”

  He looked vaguely resigned. He briefly clasped her hand, then shoved his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans. “I won’t think of anything.”

  She fought the urge to tuck away her own hand, because her palm was most definitely singing. “But if you do—”

  “But if I do, I’ll contact you.”

  It was the best she could do at the moment. Bringing up the subject of testing his DNA to help identify whether or not Karen, aka Daisy Miranda, was actually Layla’s mother wouldn’t get her anywhere. Not just yet. She didn’t have to possess the kind of brilliant mind that had been bestowed on her siblings to recognize that particular fact. “Thank you.” She barely took two steps out the front door when it closed solidly behind her.

  She didn’t look back, but let out a long, silent exhale that clouded visibly around her head as she went down the steps and headed to the SUV. At least she’d learned Daisy’s real name.

  Daisy Miranda might have seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

  But maybe Karen Cooper hadn’t.

  She pulled open the truck door and climbed inside, quickly turning on the ignition and the heat.

  Only when she drove away did she finally rub her palm against the side of her pants until the tingling went away.

  * * *

  Grant Cooper watched the SUV until it was out of sight.

  Then he turned on his heel and strode through the disaster zone that was the living room, heading back to the kitchen.

  The sight of the book sitting on top of his packing crates stopped him.

  He picked up the thick novel. Stared for a moment at the slick black cover featuring an embossed outline of a soldier. The author’s name, T. C. Grant, was spelled out in gold and was as prominent as the title—CCT Final Rules.

  He turned and threw the book—hard—across the room.

  It bounced against the plaster wall, knocked a can of white paint onto its side and fell with a thud to the floor.

  He still felt like punching something.

  If not for Karen, he never would have written the damn book he’d just thrown. But what was a little signature forgery, which had locked him into writing a fourth CCT Rules book, compared to abandoning her own child?

  He raked his fingers through his hair.

  “She wouldn’t do that,” he muttered.

  But his eyes caught in the old mirror hanging on the wall. And there was uncertainty in his reflection.

  Karen would have had to have been desperate to do it. If he hadn’t barred her from his life three years ago, she’d have come to him.

  Just like she’d always come to him, expecting him to clean up the latest mess that she’d landed herself in.

  Until that last, unforgiveable act, when she’d signed his name on the publishing contract he’d decided against accepting, he’d always been there for her.

  She’d been crashing on his couch at the time, pitching the advantages of the contract as heavily as his publisher had been. It was his fault for leaving t
he unsigned contract right out on his desk where she’d had easy access to it. His fault for not even realizing the contract had disappeared, until he’d received it back, fully executed and with a handwritten note of “glad to see you came to your senses” attached. That’s what he got for having an ex-wife for his publisher. He’d known immediately what Karen had done, then. Signed his name on the dotted line. Same as she’d used to sign their parents’ names on school report cards.

  It was easier to write the book than admit what she’d done. Courtesy of his ex-wife, Karen had walked away with a shopping spree for her part in “convincing” him to take the deal he’d admittedly been waffling over. She’d never known that writing the book had taken everything he had left out of him. Because he’d drawn the line with her by then. No more cleaning up. No more paying off. He didn’t want to hear from her. Didn’t want her phone calls. Her text messages. Her emails. Not even the postcards she always mailed from the places she ended up on her never-ending quest to find her “perfect” life.

  Didn’t matter how many times Grant told her there was no such thing. His troubled sister was always on the hunt for it.

  She’d even come to Wyoming, where she didn’t have any connections at all except for the one that he had.

  And now there was a baby. Supposedly hers.

  He looked in the mirror.

  It wasn’t his reflection he saw, though. It was his sister’s face when he’d told her to stay out of his life for good.

  He looked away from the mirror. Sighed deeply.

  “Hell, Karen. What have you done?”

  Chapter Two

  Grant didn’t recognize her at first.

  Which wasn’t all that surprising, he supposed.

  Instead of the shapeless navy blue police uniform covering her from neck to ankles, she wore a short red dress edged in black, which crossed tightly over her breasts to tie in a bow at her hip, and high-heeled black shoes. Her shapely legs peeked out below the snug hem that reached only a few inches past her butt.

  He studied Officer Templeton over the rim of his beer as she made her way between tables, taking orders and picking up empties on her way toward the bar, where he was sitting in front of the taps. She didn’t even glance his way when she got to the end of the bar, delivered her orders to the bartender and picked up a fresh set of drinks.

  “Thanks, Marty,” she said as she headed back out to the tables with her heavy tray balanced on one hand.

  Grant’s gaze followed the sway of her hips longer than was probably polite before he managed to pull it away.

  The bartender was back at the taps, filling more beer mugs. He smiled wryly as he caught Grant’s eyes. “Don’t waste your time on that one,” he advised. “The trips are hard to catch.”

  “Trips?”

  “There are two more, look just like her. Identical triplets. Except one of them got married a couple weeks ago.”

  “I guess at least she got caught.”

  Marty grinned. “Yeah, by the richest guy in town. Lincoln Swift. His brother, Jax, owns this place.”

  Grant’s interest was piqued a little more. Officer Templeton hadn’t provided that particular piece of information. That her brother-in-law’s brother owned the bar where Karen had worked. Or that she herself worked there, too. Because the police department didn’t pay enough, or because of some other secret she harbored?

  He glanced over his shoulder again. It was easy to follow Officer Templeton’s progress around the dimly lit room. For one, the dress was like a bright red beacon. Then there was her hair. She didn’t have it twisted back in a god-awful tight bun tonight; instead, it reached beyond her shoulders, a streaky mass of brown and blond waves that bounced as she walked.

  Seymour would have taken one look at Officer Templeton and said she was sex on a stick.

  If Seymour wasn’t six feet under.

  Grant looked back into his beer. He didn’t want to think about Seymour Reid any more than he wanted to speculate about his sister and her baby. But Seymour had been on his mind ever since he’d gotten the invitation in the mail that afternoon.

  It was for a ceremony a month from now, when Claudia, Seymour’s widow, would accept the Distinguished Service Cross for her deceased husband. She’d included a handwritten note for Grant, imploring him to attend. Grant had been Seymour’s best friend. He was godfather to their two children. Wouldn’t he please, please come to North Carolina, where the ceremony was being held?

  He dug his fingertips into his pounding temples. Unlike Grant, who’d been a combat controller with the US Air Force, Seymour had been army all the way. A Green Beret. He’d been a few years older than Grant, a hothead with the need to be a hero running in his veins. Grant had been attached to Sey’s unit for more than half the time he’d served. When he’d gotten out of the air force nearly six years ago because he’d thought it would save his marriage, Seymour had warned him it wouldn’t. At the time, Grant had warned Seymour that his marriage wouldn’t survive him staying in.

  But it turned out Seymour had been right.

  As usual.

  Grant and Chelsea had been divorced within a year.

  At Seymour’s funeral last year, Claudia’s wedding ring had been firmly in place on her finger.

  “Getcha another, bud?”

  He realized Marty had spoken and looked at his now-empty mug. He hadn’t even realized he’d finished the beer.

  Which was a pretty good reason not to have another. “No thanks.” He tossed enough cash on the bar to cover the drink and a tip, then pushed out of his seat and grabbed his coat from the empty bar stool next to him.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Officer Templeton bending over slightly as she cleared a table. How anyone as short as her could have legs that went on forever was beyond him. His ex-wife was nearly as tall as he was and her legs hadn’t seemed that long.

  He was almost to the door when the pretty police officer straightened and her gaze collided with his.

  She looked surprised for about half a second, then dumped her round tray into the hands of one of her customers and started toward him, not stopping until she was two feet away. She propped her hands on her slender hips and gave him a steady look. “There are at least ten bars in this town. Yet you pick Magic Jax.”

  “So?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t expect me to believe it’s coincidental. You wanted to see the place where Daisy worked.”

  “Karen. And interesting that you didn’t mention you work here, too.”

  “It’s temporary.” Her dark eyes continued to boldly meet his. “Are you going to ask when you can meet your niece?”

  He grimaced. “You don’t know that she’s my niece. You only think she is.”

  “Little lady, are we gonna get our cocktails anytime soon, or—”

  She looked at the old guy wearing a ten-gallon hat who’d just interrupted them. “Squire Clay, I’ve warned you before. If you call me ‘little lady’ again, I’m not gonna let you off for speeding the next time I stop you.”

  The auburn-haired woman with Ten Gallon hid a snicker.

  “You want your drinks right this second, go on over and get ’em from Marty,” she told him.

  Ten Gallon looked a little abashed. “Sorry, Ali,” he muttered.

  Seeming satisfied, Officer Templeton looked back at Grant. “It’s a pretty good hunch,” she continued as if there’d been no interruption at all. “If you’re willing to provide a DNA sample, we could know for sure.”

  His DNA wouldn’t prove squat, though he had no intention of telling her that. Particularly now that they’d become the focus of everyone inside the bar. The town had a whopping population of 5,000. Maybe. It was small, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a chance he’d be recognized. And the last thing he wanted was a rabid CCT Rules fan showing up on his doorstep.

&nbs
p; He’d had too much of that already. It was one of the reasons he’d taken refuge at the ranch that his biological grandparents had once owned. He’d picked it up for a song when it was auctioned off years ago, but he hadn’t seriously entertained doing much of anything with it—especially living there himself.

  At the time, he’d just taken perverse pleasure in being able to buy up the place where he’d never been welcomed while they’d been alive.

  Now, it was in such bad disrepair that to stay there even temporarily, he’d been forced to make it habitable.

  He wondered if Karen had stayed there, unbeknownst to him. If she was responsible for any of the graffiti or the holes in the walls.

  He pushed away the thought and focused on the officer. “Ali. What’s it short for?”

  She hesitated, obviously caught off guard. “Alicia, but nobody ever calls me that.” He’d been edging closer to the door, but she’d edged right along with him. “So, about that—”

  Her first name hadn’t been on the business card she’d left for him. “Ali fits you better than Alicia.”

  She gave him a look from beneath her just-from-bed sexy bangs. “Stop changing the subject, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Start talking about something else, then. Better yet—” he gestured toward the bar and Marty “—start doing the job for Jaxie that you conveniently didn’t mention before.”

  “I told you. It’s temporary.”

  “I don’t care if it is or isn’t. But it makes me wonder what other details you’ve left out.”

  She looked annoyed. “Mr. Cooper—”

  “G’night, Officer Ali.” He pushed open the door and headed out into the night.

  * * *

  Ali stifled a curse as she watched Grant Cooper flip up the collar of his coat before he strode across the street.

  Then the door to Magic Jax swung closed, cutting off the sight of him as well as the flow of cold air.

  That didn’t stop her from feeling shivery, though.

  “Ali, all your orders are backing up.”